Joseph Warren Morris

The Atonement of Sasha Joseph Warren Morris

They met in San Antonio, the Frenchman Albert Duval and the beautiful Morrocan girl Izu Lolana; and fell in love and married. Lawrence Sherette, a longtime friend of Albert's, arranged for Father Lumas of the San Fernando Cathedral to officiate the ceremony. Soon thereafter they moved to the Canary Islands where Izu had previously made her home; and where in time their beloved daughter Sasha was born. When she had attained to the age of eleven or twelve a terrible epidemic of small pox unexpectedly struck the islands, taking both parent's lives, but before her father died he arranged for Sasha to be cared for by his dear friend Lawrence Sherette in San Antonio, who was an aspiring budding priest. What, one may ask, was the sensation that ran through him upon his first coming face to face with this young beautiful girl? Nothing less than shock, it is easily assumed? "She is white! She may be invisibly part Negress, but she is white. Lily white. And this is the young girl I have inherited, the daughter of Albert Duval, my bosom friend, and Izu Lolana." In her younger years her father and mother had spent infinite hours teaching her literature and science and the scriptures. Possessing an insatiable thirst to learn about the human body and medicine she relentlessly studied a montage of medical drawings furnished by a family doctor. It was clear that her bent was strongly toward the scientific, but as well there was a propensity within her that swayed her to the artistic; in time she became a virtuoso pianist, playing the classics of the great composers, She learned French under the tutoring of her father. Her talents seemed to have no limits.